Celebrating the Season at St. Pauls

    On Saturday, December 9, Santa Claus again made a surprise visit to our congregation's annual Christmas party over at the parsonage. In spite of the bad weather, a number of people joined the cozy fellowship, officially kicking off the celebrations for the season. In addition to all the wonderful food, a highlight of the evening was the drawing for the lucky winner of the Christmas quilt raffled off by the Coffee, Tea and Stitches group. Congratulations go to Yoshi N.! Proceeds from ticket sales were over 20,000yen and will be given to the HELP Asian Women's Shelter.

    And then what a wonderful Christmas weekend we had! A Christmas Carol service of song and Bible reading lead off the Christmas Eve Day Sunday morning service on the 24th. In the late afternoon, the Christmas Eve Candlelight service was richly blessed with several gifts of music and song. Thank you's go out to Ellie S. for the beautiful violin piece, the Rakotondrajao family for the gift of song, and to the choir, led by Yasuko H. and Nahoko P., for the lovely music from Handel's Messiah. How very blessed we are to have such talented musicians in our congregation. Thanks also to Pastor Aaron for the inspiring messages on both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and to Takashi for ever faithful leadership at all three services.

    For ALL who organized, participated and helped out with these special events and worship services, we give thanks to the Lord for your gift of time and talents. As always, it was a Christmas to remember at St. Paul's!